Gloversville man has passion for moviehouse
Former usher is reunited with uniform
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, 5-28-05
Richard Samrov of Gloversville is passionate about the Glove Theatre for good reasons.
Samrov’s grandfather was the first employee of the company that owned the Glove in its prime. Samrov himself worked as an usher at the theater at 42 North Main Street when he was in high school.
Fifty years later, he became active in efforts to preserve the theater and, through a chance meeting, was able to find his usher’s uniform.
Samrov’s grandfather on his mother’s side was Harry King, who was showing movies on the second floor the Odd Fellows Hall in Gloversville in 1916.
Meyer Schine, a Latvian immigrant who had arrived in Gloversville after jobs in western New York, made a deal with King. Schine took over the lease for the theater and King was given a job for life. Schine called the theater the New Hippodrome. When Meyer’s brother Louis came home from World War I, the Schines purchased the Glove Theatre in 1920. The Glove had been built in 1914 for live performances and the Schines made the theater the flagship of their chain, which consisted of 167 movie houses at its peak.
Schine’s top corporate officials had offices above the theater. An adjacent building housed company employees and featured a 30-seat screening room where workers voted on whether films should be shown at the Glove.
In 1953, Samrov started working as a Glove usher. One cold winter day, the glass on the theater door shattered as Samrov was ejecting a troublesome customer and Samrov was badly cut. He needed eighteen stitches and still has a scar on his right arm. His usher’s uniform was unscathed.
In 1956, Samrov had the opportunity to perform as a master of ceremonies as the Schines capitalized on the Mickey Mouse Club television craze with live stage shows for children at their theaters, including the Glove.
“I had a little puppet named Squeaks who was a mouse,” Samrov said. He brought children up to the stage to have cake and celebrate their birthdays. Part of the act was a honky-tonk player piano. After a half hour show, cartoons and a movie were screened.
“It was cool, it was really cool,” Samrov said, adding he was grateful he didn’t have to wear Mickey Mouse ears during the performance.
After graduating from high school in 1957, Samrov studied at New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology and was a designer and merchandiser in the city for eight years. In 1967, he returned to Gloversville to be a designer at St. Thomas, Inc., a small leather goods firm.
As did many downtown theaters, the Glove fell on hard times because of competition from television and other factors. The last movie, Walt Disney’s “Biscuit Eaters,” was shown in 1972. After years of neglect, efforts began to restore the building in 1995.
“Most of the theater had been destroyed,” Samrov said. “When they walked into the building a piano was floating in water because there was a hole in the ceiling.”
Samrov became a Glove Theatre volunteer in 2000 and helped create the museum adjacent to the theater in 2003.
Samrov was buying a car from a woman who owned an insurance company whose son had cleaned out the theater. The man had found some uniforms and offered them to Samrov, remembering Samrov as a Glove usher. One of the uniforms had Samrov’s initials. That uniform, now restored, hangs in Samrov’s closet. “I wear it on special occasions,” he said. Other uniforms are on display at the museum.
Samrov stays in touch with grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Schine family, some of whom have visited the historic movie palace.
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